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calberga Ancient Board Spirit Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 254 Joined: Oct. 2002 Posted: Sep. 28 2007,17:27 I have an odd renaming problem.  I have a collection of files (the so-called "Child Ballads") with names in the form of: nnn y...y.mp3 Where nnn ranges from 001 to 305, and y..y is title+artist+misc. I also have a file containing lines of the form: nnn z...z Where nnn is as above, and z...z is the canonical title of the 305 Child Ballads. How can I use one of the rename-file processes to group the .mp3 files into directories with the directory names taken from the list? Somehow I need to do a rename from list where part of the file name is used to select the list item! Alternatively, is there any way to construct a complete rename-list from the existing list and the file names? HELP!!!! Back to top

Magnus Brading Almighty Author Group: Super Administrators Posts: 2751 Joined: Aug. 2002 Posted: Sep. 28 2007,18:59 Exactly what do you mean by "canonical name"? Could you please give a couple of example file names / list lines and desired final file paths/names? I will then try to help you. -------------- Software author and website owner Back to top

calberga Ancient Board Spirit Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 254 Joined: Oct. 2002 Posted: Sep. 28 2007,22:19 Sure.  First "canonical name".  Francis Child was a professor of English who, in the late 1800s compiled a collection English and Scottish ballads, including all the variant he could locate.  There were 305 different ballads in this collection.  Many of them have variant names as well as differences in the verses, etc. A group is currently posting all example which they can find recordings of on alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.folk and I am one of the people collecting these. As an example: Ballad 1 is listed (in Child's publication) as "Riddles Wisely Expounded"  A list of a few versions is: 001 - Bonnie Koloc - Devil's Nine Questions.mp3                                                     001 - Brian Peters - Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom.mp3                                             001 - Bruce Molsky - The Devil's Nine Questions.mp3                                                 001 - Fair Isle Folk - Jennifer Gentle.mp3                                                           001 - Golden Ring - Devil in the Garden.mp3                                                         001 - Jean Redpath - Riddles Wisely Expounded.mp3                                                   001 - John Kirkpatrick - Bow Down To The Bonny Broom.mp3                                             001 - John Langstaff - I Will Give My Love An Apple.mp3                                             001 - Paul Clayton and Jean Ritchie - The Devil's Questions.mp3                                     001 - Pete Coe - Juniper, Gentle and Rosemary.mp3                                                   001 - Phønix - Svend Nordmand.mp3                                                                   001 - Texas Gladden - The Devil's Nine Questions .mp3                                               001 - The Armstrong Family - Lay the Bent.mp3                                                       001 - The Clancy Brothers - Jennifer Gentle.mp3   [Note that I currently have 31 versions of this song, and there are a few for which over 200 versions have been posted.  For example, 002 The Elfin Knight includes Scarborough Fair (302 versions posted), and 084 Bonny Barbara Allan has 278.] See: Child Ballad Collection Since all the files are named as in the examples above, I have been grouping them using direct rename with patterns: Expected file name: <Custom1> - <Custom2>.mp3 Output file name: E:\Child Ballads<\>Child Ballads <Custom1><\><Custom1> - <Custom2>.mp3 This works well enough for now but I would rather have the directories named as in the example above. As I said, I have a file containing the numbers and names, but I can't figure out how to use the number in the file names to select the line from the list to name the directory. As a further example, here are the first 10 lines (of 305) in my file: Riddles Wisely Expounded - 001 The Elfin Knight - 002 The Fause Knight Upon the Road - 003 Lady Isabel and the Elf Knight - 004 Gil Brenton - 005 Willie’s Lady - 006 Earl Brand - 007 Erlinton - 008 The Fair Flower of Northumberland - 009 The Twa Sisters - 010 The Cruel Brother - 011 I can easily convert these to the form nnn x...x, if that would make things easier. Well, that went on longer than I expected! Back to top

Magnus Brading Almighty Author Group: Super Administrators Posts: 2751 Joined: Aug. 2002 Posted: Oct. 01 2007,09:44 I feel a bit stupid here, but you lost me at "I would rather have the directories named as in the example above". Which example, the one I didn't understand? Also, I didn't really find the explanation of what a "canonical name" is in that post. If you could please post a complete example with say 3 files, from beginning to end (i.e. start filename and location, and final filename and location), and I'm sure I'll be able to get a better grip on this problem. -------------- Software author and website owner Back to top

calberga Ancient Board Spirit Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 254 Joined: Oct. 2002 Posted: Oct. 01 2007,16:06 I'm sorry that I was not clear. First, the "canonical name" (my term) is simply the name used in the Child collection to subsume all the variants of a single ballad.  Thus,  "Lay the Bent to the Bonny Broom", "The Devil's Nine Questions", "Jennifer Gentle", "Devil in the Garden, "Riddles Wisely Expounded", and "Bow Down To The Bonny Broom." are all variants of "Riddles Wisely Expounded".   Original names: E:\Child Ballads\001\001 - Jean Ritchie & Oscar Brand - Riddle Me This.mp3 E:\Child Ballads\002\002 - Amy K - Scarborough Faire.mp3 E:\Child Ballads\003\003 - Mara! - The Knight On The Road.mp3 Desired names: E:\Child Ballads\001 Riddles Wisely Expounded\001 - Jean Ritchie & Oscar Brand - Riddle Me This.mp3 E:\Child Ballads\002 The Elfin Knight\002 - Amy K - Scarborough Faire.mp3 E:\Child Ballads\003 The Fause Knight Upon the Road\003 - Mara! - The Knight On The Road.mp3 Where the subdirectories of "Child Ballads" are named based on the entries in the text file: Riddles Wisely Expounded - 001 The Elfin Knight - 002 The Fause Knight Upon the Road - 003 Note that I could easely reverse the "name - number" in that file to "number - name", if that would help. In other words, any file with a name of the form "001 ###x.mp3" should wind up in the subdirectory "001 Riddles Wisely Expounded", etc.  (Even the ones actually named "001 Riddles Wisely Expounded.mp3"!) Back to top

Magnus Brading Almighty Author Group: Super Administrators Posts: 2751 Joined: Aug. 2002 Posted: Oct. 05 2007,20:58 Since Mp3/Tag Studio doesn't have any feature for tagging entire directories of files from one line in an input file, I can't think of a single operation to accomplish this.   I'm afraid I'd have to take the time to rename all 001, 002, ... directories to their full names (i.e. those in the text file), and then perform a single "tag from filename" operation to get the information into all their tags too. This is a highly rare and unusual situation though, I'd have to say to my defense. -------------- Software author and website owner Back to top

calberga Ancient Board Spirit Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 254 Joined: Oct. 2002 Posted: Oct. 05 2007,23:53 Thank you for trying. Actually, in one form or another it is a situation that I see fairly often.  For example: someone posted a set of Beethoven piano sonatas, with no tags.  The file names at least are numbered, so they are in an order.  But the names are of the form 01 Sonata 1 in F minor, op 2_1 - I. Allegro.mp3 02 - II. Adagio.mp3 03 - III. Menuetto (Allegretto).mp3 04 - IV. Prestissimo.mp3 05 Sonata 2 in A major, op 2_2 - I. Allegro vivace.mp3 . . . etc. I want to group each sonata in its own directory, named Sonata 1 in F minor, op 2_1 etc. and in that directory have files named 01 - I. Allegro.mp3 02 - II. Adagio.mp3 03 - III. Menuetto (Allegretto).mp3 04 - IV. Prestissimo.mp3 But how?  Here is a case where I could create a list of the Sonatas, by filtering, but how do I get the second etc. movements into the correct directory?   Lots of hand work.  I admit I can't think of any variation on the given methods which would accomplish this, but I could program something (I think -- it has been 16 years since I have done any real programming, and I don't have my "best" language (LISP) on this PC). Why do people dump such messes into the world????? Cyril Back to top

Magnus Brading Almighty Author Group: Super Administrators Posts: 2751 Joined: Aug. 2002 Posted: Oct. 16 2007,16:57 Sorry for the late reply Cyril, I always think "I probably need more time to answer that" when reading your questions about advanced Mp3/Tag Studio usage, and thus often repeatedly put it up, until I forget it. Anyway, just like you say, it is absolutely possible to create a custom program for dealing with this, but yet again, the situation is so special (maybe not when dealing with classic music, but generally) that the generic tools of Mp3/Tag Studio aren't designed for it. Sorry about that.   -------------- Software author and website owner Back to top

calberga Ancient Board Spirit Group: Awaiting Authorisation Posts: 254 Joined: Oct. 2002 Posted: Oct. 17 2007,14:51 Cheer up, the program is still worth much more than I paid for it! Back to top

Magnus Brading Almighty Author Group: Super Administrators Posts: 2751 Joined: Aug. 2002 Posted: Oct. 18 2007,12:12 Hehe, thanks. -------------- Software author and website owner Back to top

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